Comics Legends Document Holocaust Artist’s Struggle

Neal Adams, Joe Kubert and Stan Lee have joined forces with a Holocaust expert to craft a comic that document the struggle of an Auschwitz survivor who painted watercolors to spare her mother’s life in the Nazi camp.
The artist, Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, 85, created a Disney mural in the children’s barracks at Auschwitz before being tapped by Dr. Josef Mengele to paint portraits of Gypsy prisoners. Babbitt cut a deal with the Nazi madman that spared her mother’s life in exchange for the paintings. Now, some of Babbitt’s artwork is in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland, and Babbitt wants it back, according to The New York Times.

“I’m at a total loss,” Babbitt told the Times. “I feel just as helpless as I did when I was at camp. Totally disempowered.”

The comics triumvirate worked with Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, to create a six-page comic that tells Babbitt’s story. Medoff wrote the book, Adams illustrated it, Kubert worked on the inking and Lee wrote an introduction; now they’re just looking for a publishers.